Utah football notes » Team's schedule altered to account for it's game being played Thursday.

By Lya Wodraska

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published August 30, 2009 10:07 pm

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2009, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Friday was Monday, and Saturday was Tuesday, so today is Thursday.

Are you confused? Hopefully the Utes aren't and they make it to their appropriate Monday classes.

Utah football coach Kyle Whittingham has jumbled up the days of the week, at least in football practice terms, in order to keep the team on the right track heading into Thursday's opener against Utah State.

That means the Utes' last heavy practice was Saturday.

The Utes had Sunday off and have only light practices remaining before the opener.

Whittingham said he was pleased with the status of the team just a few days before the season begins.

"They made a good transition with school starting, that is always a transition in their routine, but it was a very good week of practice," he said.

With the team in its game week mode, Whittingham said one of the biggest tasks was to make sure the players didn't get too hyped too early in the week.

"You don't want to leave it out here on the practice field, you want to peak emotionally at 7 p.m. on Sept. 3," he said.

QB to be?

Junior college transfer Terrance Cain continues to take the majority of the snaps with the No. 1 offense, even while Whittingham continues to refuse to name a starting quarterback, at least publicly.

While there seems to be little drama remaining with who the starter is going to be, Whittingham still seems to relish keeping it vague.

"It's all going well," he said.

Bring the noise

The Utes have spent the last several days practicing with crowd noise blaring from speakers at the practice fields. Doing so is normal for the Utes, but it might be more beneficial this season with such a young offense.

"Neither of our QBs have ever played in an atmosphere like Thursday, so the more we can replicate that in practice the better," Whittingham said. "Our home crowd is very intelligent. When we are on offense, they don't get real loud because they understand we have signals to convey to each other and so forth, but you still you have to start getting used to that. It will be just the opposite at San Jose State and Oregon."